Page 51 of Taken to Lemora
“Pagh!” I wave him off and drag my heavy feet toward the entrance of an inn I’ve successfully avoided for rotations due to a general dislike of merriment and revelry.But I’ll be merry and revel for her. Well, I’ll try.
I hesitate at the door, terrified of what I’ll find inside. Terrified of…just terrified. I’m damp from the drizzle and grateful that I’m bare chested. I’m wearing the trousers she made for me. She doesn’t like my other trousers. I knew that, but I wore them anyway. Another, small wedge to separate us? Another small rebellion to keep her away? I frown at myself, and plan then never to wear anything but her creations ever again. I want to appear beautiful for her.
Beautiful.
Even if I’m a rock with horns and a temper.
The door swings open in front of me and music bombards my senses first. Then come the smells. Sweat and roasted ruffalumph and, more than anything, lobba-spiced ale. I take a deep breath and take a step forward carefully…only to be crashed into by three Rekkaru buzzing about in front of me. They drop down onto their feet — a drunk Rekkaru is rarely a flying Rekkaru — and laugh when they topple into each other.
“Your mate is a beautiful dancer,” one of them supplies. A female with large grey eyes and long, black hair.
One of the other females walking beside her agrees while the other hisses under her breath, “Didn’t you hear what he did? Heimprisonedhis mate. Put her up in a tower, he did…” They step out into the lunar and her incriminating words are dashed away from me, drowned out by music and singing, shouting and laughter.
I turn to face it, keeping to the edge of the room. A balcony wraps around the inside of the second story and couples in various states of undress hang from it. Some are mated pairs, but I don’t look at them. I eye the crowd, ignore the stares and the sneers and try to find her and, when I do…I stop moving altogether.
She’s standing on top of the longest table in the room. Barefooted, she lights up the world. Winter’s End is known to be rambunctious, but even this level of debauchery is rare and I know that this lunar, it’s because of her. Every creature in here is looking, leaning, dancing, moving, shifting, glancing towards her. Like she’s the central star that Lemora gravitates around, and we’re all successfully ensnared.
They call her miriga.They honor her. They honor me.
They may not be talking to me right now, but they haven’t forgotten that they care for me at least alittlebit. Enough for this. My lips quirk.
I take a step toward her but I’m crippled by her next loud laugh. It’s louder than I’ve ever heard it, more careless, more wild. Her head and torso fall back, but the arms linked through hers keep her upright. I want to focus on the beings next to her, but I can’t pull my gaze away. So I don’t.
My fingers fumble clumsily for a chair — any chair — and I find one and wrench it underneath me. I sit and stare like a slack-jawed idiot, planting my elbows on the small table I drag across the floor until it sits beneath me. Three wyrns of ale tip and two of them shatter on the floor. The Lemoran males who’d been seated at the table stand up and shout curses at me, but I don’t even see them. All I see are her arms above her head and her feet moving and her hips…
I swallow, a brutal image assaulting me as I watch her hips sway underneath a garment that’s far too loose. It should be tighter. Then I could see her shape and picture it more clearly. Her. Underneath me. Moving. Just. Like. That. I don’t have a very good imagination. I need more.
But…
I’m not ready. Touching her again will need to be something I can work towards.
I edge back into the shadows when she spins all the way around, worried that she’ll see me and that I’ll ruin her lunar. I watch her dance. I watch her lips move to words that speak to histories she shouldn’t know, but that doesn’t seem to matter. She is Lemoran. Ohr her past. Ohr what I said to her before in the heat of the mines. Ohr me.
She spins out of Prilla’s grasp and is caught by Charana and the two females spin around and as they continue spinning, a soft chant picks up throughout the inn. I’m not paying attention to the words they say — I never do — until it occurs to me that they’re saying her name.
I smile. And then my gut falls. Prilla’s hands touch her waist again.He’s only touching her to steady her. Not because she feels good against his hands. Not because she’s smiling at him and making him feel like king of the mountaintop.
I close my eyes and take several deep breaths in and out through my nose. Trust. Trust her. Trust me. Trust Prilla. I can do this…I think.
I hope.
I open my eyes and she’s still spinning, but her feet are bare and there are things on the table. She’s heading too close to the edge and she isn’t paying attention because she’s making this high sound with her mouth and they’re all cheering up at her and she’s smiling around at them and then it happens — she trips over a discarded wyrn and loses her balance.
Her heel spills off of the edge of the long table and her arms reach for Prilla and Charana, but both are too busy falling themselves to catch her.
She needs someone to catch her.
I dive forward, shoving creatures out of my way as I lunge to gather her in my arms. She hits my grip and it curls to crush her against me in relief and longing. But we’re still fighting. Maybe she doesn’t like this? I hold her out away from me, every intention of setting her down, but she clutches my arms, unfocused gaze boring through mine. It’s hard to keep the line of her stare. Her eyes, they’re so…so bloody happy.
She makes soft, fluttery sounds as she tries to catch her breath. It makes me want to hold her closer, but I fight and push and pull against the instinct. Instead, I open my mouth. I try for her name, but I have to clear my throat a thousand times, which draws my attention to the fact that everyone in this jumbled, drunken tavern is watching me — watching us — waiting for what happens next…
“Essmira?” I choke, dropping my voice, hating that they’re all listening. I don’t know what to say, what to do, what to ask… I clear my throat. “Can I, uh, cut in?”
Her face softens even more and she smiles and her teeth are so white and straight and her little pink tongue shines so brightly, it almost looks like it’s radiating light…huh. Funny. Then she says, “You would like to dance with me, my Lord?”
I scowl, but I don’t correct her. I haven’t earned my own name back yet, it would seem. “Ughm…yeffa. Yeffa, I would.” I nod vigorously while my insides boil and steam. But the fire is assuaged when she smiles at me. She smiles at me and it’s an inundating thing.
“You’ll have to set me down, my Lord.”
